


Armor

by Mitsuhachi



Series: Monster's Heart [4]
Category: Naruto
Genre: Gen, sex toys (non-penetrating)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-10-15
Updated: 2011-10-15
Packaged: 2017-10-24 15:48:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 920
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/265222
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mitsuhachi/pseuds/Mitsuhachi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>During the Kazekage's visit for Konoha's midwinter celebrations, Naruto and Gaara have a talk. Fourth in my Ace!Gaara series.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Armor

Konoha’s midwinter celebrations were nothing like Suna’s. In Suna, single shinobi or else sometimes small family-groups left a single candle burning through the Longest Night, visited the little shrine in the desert in the morning, and that was that. In Konoha, the parties had been going for the better part of a week by the time the Sand delegation had arrived, dancing and drinking and bonfires and feasts (Gaara understood that the Akimichi clan spent months planning and preparing for the midwinter festivities, hosting a great number of the public parties on their own land) until he hardly knew what to make of it.

Apparently however, although many parties lasted well into the night here, no one kept vigil over the light until dawn. By sometime into third watch, most of the people had gone, either to their own smaller after-parties or else to their homes. The Uchiha and his wife had gone to bed in the Hokage’s residence long since. Temari had dragged Kankuro, complaining over his cider, out into the woods, following the Hyuuga woman to her family’s shrine on the edge of the village. She’d paused at the door even though their ANBU were still stationed in the compound, looking across Naruto’s small study at her Kazekage without saying anything. But they were among friends—any other alliance between villages might be mistrusted, but his alliance with Konoha was built on strong bonds, deep gratitude. They were as safe here as it was possible to be.

And so she’d gone, leaving Gaara to watch the snow fall outside the windows silently with Naruto, who’d been Hokage too long not to see the implications of it. For a few seconds Gaara sat, still, listening to the crackle of the fire while Naruto squirmed. “Man—you know you’re safe here.” It wasn’t a question. Gaara didn’t bother to reply. “So, um. Why do you, I mean…” Gaara flicked a vaguely curious glance up at him as he made an annoyed sound. “You know, the _that_.” He waved a hand hazily at Gaara himself, and it took a moment for Gaara to understand that he meant the Sand Armor.

It took him longer to decide how to answer. “It’s rare that I don’t wear it,” he said finally, slowly feeling his way towards a truth he’d never tried to share with another being. But Naruto was like him, and if anyone could understand… “It’s pleasing to me, to wear it.”

“Um….” Naruto looked halfway between completely confused and a little worried, and so Gaara tried again.

“It isn’t that I still think it’s my mother,” he assured the other monster, “only that it’s my partner, my other self—it helps me to be so excellent a weapon for my Important People. It is…” he frowned, just the tiniest bit, because he wasn’t saying it right. How did you put this kind of feeling into words anyway? “Here, let me show you.”

He held out one hand, and a small part of him purred at the way Naruto took it without a moment’s hesitation. He lowered his eyelids until they were almost closed, concentrating, and very slowly grains of sand started to pass from his skin onto Naruto’s. There wasn’t enough, of course, to do this only with the Sand Gaara was wearing, but more drifted up from the gourd at his feet, warm with being near the fireplace, curling up Naruto’s fingers and over his wrist tight like a glove. “You see?” he whispered, feeling the soft scratch of the Sand moving over his skin, flowing from him to Naruto—Naruto, who was like him, who wasn’t pulling away. Little by little the Sand crept up his arm underneath the loose tunic Naruto had worn for the party. It looked like something of the Uchiha’s, but the shape of it was obscuring in a way that meant that Gaara had to concentrate to mold the Armor properly--Naruto was broader in the shoulders than he was, taller and more muscled, so that he couldn’t just form the shapes from habit and memory as usual.

“Man, I gotta say, this is really…” Naruto was still looking fairly ‘weirded out’ and so Gaara tried again to explain, folding the Sand carefully over the dips and curves of Naruto’s neck, chest, hips.

“It’s warm, isn’t it?” he murmured, directing the Sand in tiny trickles past the waistband of Naruto’s pants to circle his thighs, down to his knees. “Heavy and warm like one of your Important People holding you. And you’re safe, like this—really safe, nothing in the world can hurt you with the Sand defending you.” He shaped the Armor over Naruto’s lean calves, and delicately traced it around the tiny cylinders of his toes. He left the face for last, carefully watching for signs of fear or denial. But instead Naruto was starting to look almost as if he understood, and so he traced the curve of Naruto’s cheek in the air, actually using in fingers to direct the delicate work of pulling the blanket of Sand over his chin and cheek and forehead. Naruto blinked and Gaara let the Sand creep up almost to the edge of his eyes

“It feels like Team,” Naruto said, tiny grains of Sand falling from his lips as they moved. Gaara pictured him, curled up upstairs beside his mate and his wife. Warm, and loved, and safe.

“Yes,” Gaara agreed, and as he let the Armor start to fall away, he was smiling.


End file.
